Sites to behold: The Campus Squirrel Listings

gottshakk.com/squirrels.campsq.htm

Selecting which college to attend is one of the most important and challenging decisions. With colleges offering fewer classes and cutting back on their faculty, many students will spend the next six to 10 years of their lives obtaining their undergraduate degrees. And there are a lot of factors to take into account: cost, programs, reputation, the quality of the dorm food, the campus’ squirrel population.

To help resolve the latter quandary there is a website, called The Campus Squirrel Listings, that provides detailed information about the squirrel populations at such universities as UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, CSU Fullerton, CSU Chico, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and NYU.

“The quality of an institution of higher learning can often be determined by the size, health, and behavior of the squirrel population on campus,” says the website. “This site documents the critter quality at schools throughout the United States and beyond.”

For example, the report for UCLA is as follows: “Gray Squirrels are fairly common at UCLA. They can often be found around the trees near the Janss steps. Some of them look underfed and mangy, however. In general there is a shortage of squirrel-friendly trees on this campus. Most of the students seem to have very little interest in their squirrel resources.” This summary is accompanied by a rating of three out of five possible squirrels. UC Berkeley, the United States Naval Academy, and Kansas State University are among the few universities that received a perfect five out of five squirrels.

CSU Fullerton received the lowest possible score—a single squirrel accompanied by a minus sign. According to the evaluation, “On very rare occasions you MIGHT see a squirrel here. There was a colony of California Ground Squirrels near the humanities building, until they POISONED THEM ALL.” It should be noted that the “poisoned them all” part was written in red font and caps indicating a grievous injustice.